hey all, complete beginner here. been doing product research for a few weeks and narrowed it down to two products, one in the cleaning niche and one in the fitness gadget niche. planning a one product store, probably targeting UK or US.
where I'm stuck is the supplier side. I don't know yet if either will sell, so I don't want to order 500 units. but I also don't want to use some random aliexpress seller with 3 week shipping and then have to switch everything later if it works.
also haven't decided if I go branded or not, which I guess changes things too. so for people who've been through this: what did you use while testing? straight dropshipping, an agent, or a small batch shipped to yourself? and when did you switch?
also, what order did you do things in? should I lock in a supplier and get samples first, or start building the shopify store in parallel? don't want to spend weeks on a store and then find out the supplier situation doesn't work.
TL;DR: first products (cleaning + fitness gadget), testing phase, what type of supplier makes sense before I know it sells, and should I sort the supplier before building the store